The McLaughlin Group Taught Me More About Human Interaction Than Any Other Show

John McLaughlin has passed away at the age of 89. Here, reprinted in full, is Chuck Klosterman's excellent 2008 essay on McLaughlin's namesake show.

The McLaughlin Group has been on television for twenty-six years. I began watching it in 1986. I can't think of any program that has taught me more about human interaction, if not necessarily about politics or journalism. Right now, there are 388 shows on television that feature lunatics yelling at one another, but this is still the only good one. Critics sometimes suggest that the success of The McLaughlin Group has led to the erosion of serious discourse in American media, but that's like complaining about AC/DC because of Rhino Bucket. The failures of its followers only serve to illustrate why The McLaughlin Group is -- almost exactly -- what televised arguing should look, sound, and feel like. The shows that plagiarized the "McGroup" format copied the wrong things; the only quality they duplicated was the volume. What actually makes The McLaughlin Group so continually watchable is a) its inherent understanding of how personal dynamics operate, b) its supernatural ability to incarnate idealized semiotics, and c) the force of one specific personality. The show remains brilliant.

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These are the reasons why.

I. Adversaries who hate each other must love each other.

I was sitting in The McLaughlin Group greenroom at the NBC studio in Washington, D.C., chatting with Pat Buchanan about Eleanor Clift. It was Friday, December 7, 2007. "People assume we aren't friends, but we have a lot in common," Buchanan said. "For example, Eleanor and I share a great affinity for cats." He went on to tell me that he had a cat named Gipper for eighteen years, and when Gipper died, Clift commiserated with him over the loss.

I was not surprised to discover that Buchanan and Clift are friends; anyone who has watched The McLaughlin Group over time might come to that conclusion. The friendship seems palpable. But that palpability is superficially paradoxical; aside from their views on the war in Iraq, Clift and Buchanan agree on nothing. Most of their relationship is built on attacking each other's worldviews. From a production perspective, this is imperative. It is not fun to watch public arguments between two people who legitimately hate each other, as they will inevitably spend 95 percent of the conversation pretending they're cordial. Real enemies can only disagree once; after that, they will only do battle in absentia or in court. If you want people to go for the jugular every single weekend, they need to enjoy the foe they're assaulting. It's worth noting that the panelists on The McLaughlin Group make very little money for appearing on the show; they would not tell me the exact amount, but a producer indicated it was well below $1,000 per appearance and did not include travel expenses.

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"Pat is a very generous debater," Clift later told me. "He will often say, 'Eleanor is right on this point,' and I can't believe how good that makes me feel. It makes me feel way better than it should."

II. Simplify, then exaggerate.

The McLaughlin Group is not about details. If you want details, don't watch television. Also, don't read newspapers or magazines, stay off the Internet, and buy only nonpartisan books about events that happened no less than ten years ago. Modernity is not detail oriented. The McLaughlin Group is about the abstraction of policy delivered in the most propulsive way possible. This is the formula: Take a news item, locate its core essence, and then debate its metaphoric significance on the grandest possible scale. Nobody cares if Hillary is up four points in South Carolina; what's compelling is the notion that those four points could represent the potential for how the new South may (or may not) be rethinking the role of women in society. On CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, all they talk about is politics. On The McLaughlin Group, they talk about political science. And -- yes -- I suppose it's the junk-science version, but it's more engaging than the alternative. If you watch The McLaughlin Group for a month, you will hear at least one conceptual conversation about the merits of isolationism.

On the day I attended the taping, the thrust of the episode was Mitt Romney's speech on how faith would impact his presidency, and John McLaughlin's entry query was, "Did [Romney] dispel doubts about his Mormonism?" In the context of a normal public-affairs show, it would seem as though this was a question about how religion would impact his likelihood of winning the GOP nomination. But that point was barely mentioned; what actually transpired was an insane debate over the role of secularism and whether or not the Garden of Eden is located in Missouri, punctuated by Lawrence O'Donnell saying, "Look, Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist." Oddly, O'Donnell's credibility for making this statement was partially based on his involvement as a supporting actor on HBO's Big Love. But at least he was talking about what something means, as opposed to why something happened.

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III. Within any random group, the smartest guy is the funniest guy.

While visiting The McLaughlin Group set, I was able to talk with everybody involved...except John McLaughlin. When I arrived at the studio, he was locked away in a secret room, preparing his bizarre elocutions. The moment the taping concluded, he jumped into a town car, was driven to Reagan airport, and flew to Florida. Our only interaction was a handshake ninety seconds before airtime. He shook my hand and asked his assistant, "Who's this guy?" It was like shaking hands with a humanoid owl. It was the best celebrity encounter of my journalistic career.

He decides who appears on the show, he decides what they talk about, and he dictates the dialogue.

McLaughlin's stewardship of The McLaughlin Group is akin to Vladimir Putin's stewardship of Russia: There is no chain of command. He runs everything. He decides who appears on the show, he decides what they talk about, and he dictates the dialogue. Buchanan (who has known him since 1970, when McLaughlin was still a Jesuit priest) calls him a "benevolent dictator." I never really talked with the guy, so I can't say if he's mostly friendly or mostly abrasive. But I do know this: Now that Arrested Development has been canceled and Will Arnett is largely off the air, John McLaughlin is the funniest man on television. Has anyone ever generated so much entertainment value from the process of loudly asking questions? He is simply the best pure talker in contemporary broadcasting.

After shaking my hand, McLaughlin took his place. The four panelists were already waiting for him. In the few minutes before going on the air, they briefly discussed the Drudge Report. For some reason, McLaughlin then compared himself to a whirling dervish while quasi flirting with short-skirted conservative talk-show host Monica Crowley. This was followed by an exchange between Buchanan and McLaughlin, the latter suggesting that Irishmen were born with webbed feet because they had to swim to the U.S. from Canada. It appears that this is the normal way they interact. A producer yelled at McLaughlin to straighten his tie; her request was completely ignored. He did not seem to care that this would be on TV. McLaughlin and Buchanan continued talking, now about Jack Germond and what time of day the Internet becomes available to the public. Suddenly, the producer started counting down from five. Still McLaughlin ignored her. When she silently flashed him three fingers, then two fingers, he did not appear to recognize her efforts. But then -- without warning and with limitless confidence -- he swiveled his head toward the camera and yelled, "Issue one!"